Hell is Real Trademark

 

From time to time, we get comments related to the Hell is Real Trademark.  We get fans on our social media questioning how we obtained it and why do we own the mark. 

We would like to take the time to explain the whole situation, our motives and why we own the trademark for Hell is Real. 

This all started when the Columbus Crew played FC Cincinnati back in the USL days on June 14th, 2017. When the name for the rivalry caught on amongst local fans, we were right there to create a t-Shirt as we do with most local hot market events.  We were FC Cincinnati's only local licensee at this time and had a great relationship with the club.

They informed us that that ownership was not interested in promoting Hell is Real at the time, so we could not do a shirt with the FC Cincinnati marks.  They were fine with us creating a shirt on our own.  We went ahead and designed a shirt and sold a decent amount for the first ever Hell is Real Derby.

A few years went by and the popularity of Hell is Real grew. The rivalry was set in stone, and there was no denying that it would stick.  Both teams started to embrace it, and Hell is Real continued to thrive. 

Cincy Shirts received a Cease and Desist from a party in Columbus claiming that they had trademarked the term and we needed to remove all Hell is Real merch from our site and stores.  We sent this request to our lawyer and asked if there was anything we could do.   Turns out there was...

We went back in our records and found proof of our first online sales being before the date of the party from Columbus telling us to quit.  Since we used the mark in commerce before they did, a judge ruled that we were able to take ownership of it. 

We did this in order to protect ourselves and our ability to sell shirts with "Hell is Real" on them and not to cash in on the local IP.  We also thought it was cool that we were able to bring it home to Cincinnati. We understand that this is a touchy subject with supporter groups, but had we not been told that we had to stop selling tees, we would have never pursued the trademark. 

So that's the story of the Hell is Real Trademark. We hope you enjoyed reading this as much as we enjoyed writing it!